


To Have And To Hold

by AsagiStilinski



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Character's Name Spelled as Viktor, Character's Name Spelled as Yuri, Christophe Giacometti & Victor Nikiforov Friendship, Emotional Hurt, Light Angst, Literal Sleeping Together, Loneliness, Lonely Victor Nikiforov, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Past Christophe Giacometti/Victor Nikiforov, Past Relationship(s), Sleep, Sleeping Together, Sort Of, Victor Nikiforov Needs a Hug, Victor Nikiforov-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:08:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25439734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsagiStilinski/pseuds/AsagiStilinski
Summary: Ever since he was a child, Viktor has been at his loneliest when he falls asleep, as an adult though, he tries (with varying levels of success) to remedy that
Relationships: Christophe Giacometti/Victor Nikiforov, Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov
Comments: 7
Kudos: 107





	To Have And To Hold

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have much to say unfortunately, so just... here? xD

When Viktor was a child, he slept with stuffed animals

Stuffed animals were his favorite toys, he used to use every opportunity he could to get a new one so he could add it to the collection growing on his bed

He liked the weight of it, he liked being able to reach out in the darkness and grab something fluffy and cuddly to hold onto when he felt scared or lonely, and the more of them there were, the easier this was to accomplish

But at some age that he couldn't completely recall, his mother had insisted he stop sleeping with stuffed animals

She said he was too old for such things and put all of his stuffed animals on a shelf in his room

Viktor always climbed onto the toy chest or a chair or even the desk to fish one of them down before bed each night though, he'd hold it close to his chest and try to make himself believe that it was enough

\--

When Viktor was thirteen he managed to convince his mother to let him have a dog

He had won gold at the junior GPF that year- he had earned this

His mother though was a somewhat strict woman and had a long list of rules to follow for keeping a dog, one of them being that Makkachin was to sleep in her own bed, not in Viktor's

He supposed it should have been enough that he had talked his mother into letting Makkachin sleep in his room in the first place, as originally, she had wanted Makkachin to sleep downstairs in the living room

But Viktor Nikiforov had never met a limit he couldn't break, so every night he'd help the puppy into his bed and use his best poker face the next morning to tell his mother that she hadn't slept there- or that, on the rare occasion his mother caught him, he had no idea how Makkachin kept getting into the bed

At thirteen, he finally stopped sleeping with the lone teddy bear he'd managed to save all those years, and had instead started sleeping with a puppy

Yes, he got kicked from time to time, and he had to train himself to be a much lighter sleeper so as not to roll over on her, and there was that one incident where she wet the bed and Viktor got up in the middle of the night to wash the sheets so his mother would never know

But all in all, having a living, breathing, creature sleeping in his arms was a billion times better than a stuffed animal

\--

At seventeen, Viktor slept with a person for the first time

It wasn't special, it was only even memorable because it was the first

Viktor didn't love him, he wasn't even sure if what he had felt for the other skater had been a crush or anything beyond basic attraction, or even anything beyond just a desire not to be lonely

At seventeen, Viktor slept with someone for the first time, but only felt lonely when he fell asleep, and bitterly admitted to himself that he had preferred sleeping with his dog

\--

At twenty-one, Viktor slept with Chris for the first time

Viktor didn't really have relationships- at the time, neither of them did, but for very different reasons

Chris was a playboy, always looking for someone to have a fun night with; Viktor was only marginally interested in sex, and much more interested in having someone to share a bed with

Chris, Viktor discovered, was the perfect person for this

Sure, they slept together in _every_ context of the term, and the sex was easily the best Viktor had ever had, but it was what came after that cemented Chris as Viktor's only freind-with-benefits

Because Chris liked to cuddle- _alot_

And maybe part of that was because he knew how much Viktor liked it, and Chris was extremely flexible about those sorts of things, he always wanted to give his lovers exactly what they wanted, and Viktor, more than anything else, wanted to be held

That first time, Chris wrapped his arms around him, hugged tight, and didn't pull away when Viktor squirmed around and hugged him back even tighter

They woke the next morning with Viktor practically octopus-ed over Chris, but Chris didn't move an inch until Viktor woke up

Viktor liked to say that for anyone else, sleeping with a freind would only cause strain on the relationship, but for he and Chris, it actually made their relationship _better_

Ironically, it was sleeping with him that cemented Chris as Viktor's best freind, not because of the sex- as good as that may have been- but because of the cuddling, because Chris didn't keep to himself on the other side of the bed or leave after sex or put any form of distance between them, he welcomed all of Viktor's clinginess with literal open arms, and Viktor had discovered, after only twenty-one years of life, that it took a very warm-hearted person to do that

And with all the cold the ice brought him, Viktor could use some warmth

After that he started to unofficially zero in on Chris, and really only slept with him for the next several years

Not because he was trying to be exclusive with him- they loved eachother, but not like that- but rather because Chris was the only person he could sleep with and never feel lonely after

Still, on a few occasions, during competitions where Chris wasn't participating, Viktor had chatted up the sweetest looking man he could find, and he _tried_

He tried to find someone else who made the loneliness lessen, who could bring him that same peace, or at the very least compare to his dog

Sometimes he was marginally successfull, sometimes he wasn't, they sometimes compared to Makkachin but never quite stacked up to Chris

And Viktor found himself wondering how much Yakov would yell at him if he started insisting on bringing Makkachin to competitions with him

\--

At twenty-seven, Viktor found someone who compared to Chris

Or, perhaps better put, someone who _could_ compare to Chris

Yuri Katsuki was a hurricane in a bottle

A tornado of emotions and passions and open, bleeding, wounded hearts, all shaken up like fizzy pop and crammed down into a jar, waiting on some dumbass to unsuspectingly pull the lid off

Viktor was that dumbass

He pulled off Yuri's lid and Yuri exploded all over him like a shaken bottle of soda, a flurry of brightness and sweetness and emotion that swirved between layers of happy and excited and passionate and affectionate, that made Viktor feel like he was standing in the middle of a tropical storm, but only in the best ways

He couldn't say that he was in love with Yuri at that banquet, he knew better than that

But he was in love with the way that Yuri made him _feel_

He was in love with the way Yuri hung on him, clung to him, dragged him into his world like a siren leading a ship's captain off course

He loved the warmth of Yuri's touch and the innocence of the way Yuri fell into him, not at all the sleek charm or overconfident expertise that so many of Viktor's partners had demonstrated when they merely wanted to mark "Sleeping with a living legend" off of their bucket list

With Yuri it was genuine

It was just sincere affection, as messy and sloppy and convoluted as it was

And Viktor ached for that in ways he hadn't really thought possible

He went back to his hotel room that night and couldn't sleep

At Worlds, he held onto Chris so tightly that he nearly shattered when morning came

But he was very good at pretending that he was ok, he always had been, he always would be

Until he got home to Makkachin and squeezed so hard that she yelped

(He apologized a thousand times over for that in expensive dog treats and extra long walks for the next week)

\--

At twenty-eight, Viktor stood in front of the doors to Yutopia with a million thoughts running through his head

One of them was a spark of excitement at finally getting a good night's sleep

He was about to be sorely disappointed

\--

That same day, Viktor discovered that he was infinitely more comfortable sleeping sprawled out on the floor listening to the random chatters of strangers speaking a foreign language than he was in a comfortable bed all alone

\--

At some point, Viktor stopped lying to himself

Yuri wasn't interested, and he would always feel lonely when he fell asleep

\--

Viktor had never watched alot of TV, he had just never quite had the time, and he had always been more of a book person anyway, even on the rare occasion that he had the attention to spare

But one thing he noticed about TV shows and movies was how comfortable people always seemed to be when they slept with others

He noticed it almost obsessively, and by the age of twenty-eight, he had started wondering if it was just fiction

The way people held eachother, the way they seemed to be so connected, even in their sleep, how comfortable they looked holding eachother on cold winter nights, especially when it was raining or snowing

He wondered if that was just one of the many things about "TV magic" that he was never meant to understand

In Beijing, Viktor gets his answer after falling asleep on Yuri for the first time

For once, "TV magic" had nothing to do with it

\--

Viktor could say alot about the first time he and Yuri sleep together- properly, that is

He could talk about the sex, or the circumstances leading up to it, or what it meant or how it felt

But what he's most focused on is the sleeping

Both of them were so worn out by the time they finally fell asleep, that Viktor was sure they would have slept well regardless of the circumstances

But it's the small things that keep playing back in his mind for Viktor

It's the warmth of Yuri's body as he allows himself to doze off, it's the way he holds Viktor tighter and tugs him closer, it's the lazy way they wake in the morning, minds taking their time to come back online

The way they exchange good-morning kisses and hold eachother for another ten minutes before they can no longer convince the alarm clock to let them press "snooze"

It's the way that Yuri clearly doesn't want to let go of him, the same way that Viktor doesn't want to let go of Yuri

At twenty-eight, Viktor finally has someone he can hold onto every night, and who will hold him back

He finally has what he's been looking for all this time, presented in the form of dark hair and shy smiles and a heart so warm and so tender that Viktor feels almost as though he's not the right person to hold it, afraid of hurting it in the long run

But he never says any such thing because he doesn't want to lose it

He can't ever let himself lose it

Because for the first time that he can ever remember, Viktor falls asleep at night without even a hint of loneliness in his heart


End file.
